2nd Dish - Why bother?

Why does Dish even bother to carry additional local channels at 61.5? Just to say they do carry them?? Most people I know don't like the 1 dish mounted on their house, and don't want a 2nd.

I get all the local channels except UPN and one religious independent that are on the 61.5 satellite. When I signed up the CSR offered me WWOR or WSBK for UPN and never mentioned the fact that there was a local UPN available on a 2nd dish if I wanted one.

Why does Dish even bother to carry additional local channels at 61.5? Just to say they do carry them?? Most people I know don't like the 1 dish mounted on their house, and don't want a 2nd.

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1) You know a lot of stupid people
2) the channels on the second dish are required to carried *by law*
3) they also carry additional channels on 148
4) the FCC is investigating claims that E* is not doing enough to promote the "extra locals" that require the 2nd dish, and claims that E* is not making obtaining those channels easy
5) there is a fair chance that the FCC will sanction E* for having some locals on a separate dish instead of keeping entire markets together.

When I called for the 2nd dish, they could not have been more cooperative and quick. I had it installed Free the next week.

The 2nd is not needed. This time last year, the 2nd dishes held all of the HDTV. Now they have barely nothing (CBS-HD). I'm going to keep mine up because who knows what they may need to do later this year. Hopefully there will be a bunch of new HDTV channels launched this year.

With the way Dish has been changing plans every couple of weeks, I have it to make sure I am "future proofed". I also like the fact I am getting all the channels I am paying for, even if I rarely watch any of them.

Have anyone ever seen all of the hack jobs that have been installed by DNSC? As a professional high end installer, I've been called out to repair or clean up over a hundred of them.

The "must carry" and the second dish is the result of cable companies complaining that they have to carry those extra channels and a way for them to deter satellite from using that bandwidth for something more productive.

I would suspect that when E10 goes up next year they will move all the stray locals from the wings to E10. They really will not have that many more markets to add by the time E10 goes up. Perhaps they will move some of the superdish markets to E10, but Dish is now starting to run out of markets to put up. By the time E10 goes up next year they could have the top 150 markets pretty well covered, and be working their way to the top 175.

I took the second dish for one of the reasons above, it was free. I hardly watched anything off of 61.5 when I think about it. My local PBS and UPN stations are on 61.5, but I don't watch PBS and the only UPN show I watched was Twilight Zone which I recorded off of WSBK. But when it comes to satellite dishes, the more the merrier, I have 3 dishes and an off air antenna on the roof, and I'd like to move my XM antenna up there. Beauty is in the beholder

And who are these people who hate having a dish mounted to their house?

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LOL.. There are some people that think satellites look ugly mounted outside your house and said it would be stupid to have 2 dishes out there. I don't care what it looks like. I used to have 2 dishes side by side at my old house for directv and dish service. Who cares that it looks like, what you get on your TV is the whole point to me.

And who are these people who hate having a dish mounted to their house?

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Not me! I am proud to 'show off'' my 2-dish antenna 'tree' and the absolutely professional reconfiguration/install I got from my DNSC guy. I can't wait to replace my Dish500 with a superdish. Some of my neighbors think I am the satellite guru of the neighborhood and I probably am! I'm likely the cause of more cable disconnects and E*/D* installs than I am aware.

Mike500 said:

Have anyone ever seen all of the hack jobs that have been installed by DNSC?

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Not me, Mike. I'm sure you've seen more, but I have more confidence in DNSC's installs that the average jackleg freelance five-a-day and home by 5 installer.

Neutron said:

The wife does not want a 2nd dish on our fence.

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That's a lame excuse, Neutron. We know who wears the pants in your family. Change your handle to from "Neutron" to "Neuteron". Ask your wife since she's in charge of the 'electrics', will she please. please allow you to be in charge of the 'electronics'.

Yard decor isn't that big of a deal when you are inside watching TV. :lol:

I asked for a 2nd dish but when the installer came out, it was cold, windy, and raining. He took > 30secs to say that it would not work because he said both sats were blocked by trees etc.... i disagree. should i call back and make another tech come out ? the original installer said it could prob be done, he just didnt want to fool with it since he wasnt being paid to install it at the time. i've installed lots of DirecTV dishes myself so I know how to do it. Would Dish send me the stuff and let me try it myself if they are unwilling to send another tech ? could i ask for the original installer to come out again ?

Yes, you should call Dish back and explain to them the situation, and ask for another install date. You may or may not get the same installer. If you get the original installer to do the second dish he may charge you, if you go though Dish it will be totally free. I don't think Dish will send you the dish and let you put it up. Dish is funny about that kind of stuff. When I got my 508 receiver, it had to be professionally installed, which required nothing other then unhooking 5 cables from my old receiver, hooking them back up to the 508 and calling Dish to activate.